This year's Champions Cup run is over for Munster, but the long term signs are that the journey has only begun.

It was always going to be a huge task to dethrone the reigning champions without Conor Murray, and while Munster threw everything at Saracens, the English giants were full value for their 26-10 win.

In the first half, they were hit with everything from Munster, and barely blinked. Their time on the ball was limited, but even in the moment they seemed in control. Their defending wasn't last ditch, but assured. Similar to Juventus against Barcelona on Wednesday night in the Champions League, they knew they'd face spells of waving Munster attack, but they patiently made their tackles. Even when Jackson Wray was sin-binned they kept their cool, holding Munster scoreless, and an Owen Farrell penalty put them 6-3 in front, just as they were restored to a full compliment of 15.

And as champions do, they flexed their muscles in the second half. After a couple of missed opportunities, Mako Vunipola made their early second half pressure pay off when barged his way over the line for the game's first try on 55 minutes, and from there they just managed the lead to perfection.

Farrell kicked another penalty to make it 16-3, before a sloppy mistake allowed Chris Wyles to touch down and seal it. Another conversion and penalty made it 26-3, and the game all but won.

CJ Stander did give the red sea at the Aviva something to celebrate when he found his way over for a late try, but it was merely a consolation, with the final whistle showing Saracens as deserving 16-point winners.

There will be mush analysis done in the coming days about where exactly the game was won and lost, but the initial take is that Munster came up against a far superior team this afternoon. This wasn't a bottle-job, or a team failing to live up to the hype. This was just a team throwing every ounce of energy at a game, and finding that their opponents simply had more. Rassie Erasmus said as much in his post-match press conference. Saracens have been here for longer, and they know how to do the job. They have traits that come in time.

When the dust settles, this will be looked back on as a remarkable European campaign from Munster. At the launch of the tournament in Dublin last October, Erasmus joked that he'd looked at Pool 1 trying to find out which was the easy game in the group, only to realise that Munster were probably it.

Following two seasons of disappointment, scraping into a quarter final would have been a big achievement. Narrowly missing out on the quarters was probably realistic.

All of this was before the sudden death of their head coach, and arguably the most legendary figure Munster rugby has ever seen. In the days after that, people weren't even thinking about the final pool games in January. Some things were more important.

But just minutes into that emotional and inspiring win against the Glasgow Warriors, you couldn't shake the feeling that something special was to be born from Foley's passing. Boys grew to men and men grew to legends, and that togetherness has carried them since.

There was talk of an all-Irish final at Murrayfield, and it wasn't down to cockiness. It was hope. The kind of crazy hope that saw thousands of fans travel to places like Bordeaux and Lille and Beziers in the early 2000s, watching Declan Kidney's players earn the reputation that stands to them to this day.

It peaked in the weeks leading up to today's game at the Aviva. Phonecalls and texts were flying. Tickets were being sought. The red flags were hanging from car doors and bedroom windows and across streets. Every conversation invariably rounded back to THE MATCH. When the players walked out onto the pitch, it looked like Thomond Park had swollen and was ready to burst, such was the blood-red greeting that awaited them. Win or lose, the buzz was back.

The next job, is to make sure the buzz stays. The European journey may be over, but there's silverware still to be won, and that all-Irish final could still be a reality, just on the smaller scale of the PRO12. Tasting that silverware is just the first step in close the gap between themselves and teams like Saracens. 

There's a lot of ground still to make up, but the signs are that this group are capable of doing it.